HYLA Blog

CTIA: The Future of Mobile Trade-in

You could feel it immediately when walking around the exhibition space of the CTIA Super Mobility 2016 conference this year -- the overwhelming feeling that something revolutionary was in the air. This conference was all about wireless innovation and how “super mobility” will define how people live their lives and do business.

The conference, which was held in September in Las Vegas, illustrated and emphasized how wireless devices are connecting people to almost every imaginable service and product.

If retailers and enterprises can’t figure out how to make the most of this breakthrough they will surely fall behind.

Where the Future is Headed

One thing you couldn’t escape at the show was how wireless capabilities will power smart cities. CTIA set up a scale version of a smart city on the show floor, demonstrating how the Internet of Things (IoT) can connect virtually everything. Sensors are now on everything you could imagine and more, even liquor bottles. With a new breakthrough technology, companies can stream messages on bottles to consumers with offers and incentives of all kinds while also tracking their products through the entire supply chain.

The show left audiences excited about the possibilities of wireless and IoT and how they will affect all of the areas of the mobile industry, including mobile trade-ins. HYLA’s already excelling in helping companies streamline their trade-in processes and recycling of mobile phones, but are we ready to soon include smart watches, wearables and the next big things that IoT and other technological breakthroughs will produce. Retailers are now selling smart watches and wearables, and the carriers are asking us if we’re ready to handle them for mobile trade-in.

Key Takeaways from CTIA in the Eyes of HYLA

It’s all about preparing for the future. To that end, the CTIA conference also houses many meetings each day during the event with large carrier customers and their dealers, not to mention point-of-sale vendors, OEM’s, accessory companies and pre-paid carriers and device manufacturers. CTIA offered a comfortable atmosphere for personable and productive meetings that greatly benefited the attendees.

Here are a few developments, thoughts and ideas that came out of our discussions at the CTIA conference:

CTIA offered the ability to explore the possibilities of partnership opportunities between several accessory companies and HYLA. These opportunities would increase the accessory companies’ market share and overall sales. One possibility being considered is to create a type of promotion that incentivizes consumer trade-in, with customers either getting paid for old devices or applying the value to accessories for new devices.

The goal is to increase dealers’ accessory sales, trade-ins and overall dealer’s sales – everybody wins- the consumer, the dealer and the accessory vendor.

This conference also allowed for discussions with a senior leader of a Tier 1 carrier about ways that they could increase their mobile trade-in transactions and how those trade-ins could boost sales of other high-margin products such as accessories, while increasing customer satisfaction.

CTIA was also a reminder that we and our partners need to better entice customers to return to a store after a phone purchase so they can trade-in their device.

One possibility involves the carriers sending a text or email to customers that recently made a purchase at their store but did not trade-in their device. This message could thank them for their purchases and offer a discount or reward to get them to trade-in their device and purchase additional accessories.

You can’t afford to lose potential trades by not communicating with customers, but to incentivize customers, you need to give them a reason to return and trade-in their device.

All in all, CTIA was a fun, worthwhile and enlightening conference. The future is coming fast with IoT and connected products and HYLA will be ready for whatever is necessary to give a second life to all those products.

If you want to learn more about HYLA Mobile's technology and how it can support your trade-in program, download our FREE white paper Transforming Trade-in and Expanding Your Customer Base with Mobile Technology. >>

About This Blog

The HYLA Mobile blog is a place for thoughtful dialogue that will ultimately change the perception of “used” phones around the world. Visit the HYLA website to learn more.